Joshua Bowman – CatholicVote.orghttps://www.catholicvote.org
The mission of CatholicVote.org is to educate and inspire Americans of all faiths to prioritize the issues of life, faith, and family.Tue, 20 Mar 2018 02:09:37 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.9.2The Catholic Vote Radio Hour is a program where the dogma lives loudly.CatholicVote.orgcleanepisodicCatholicVote.orgmercer@catholicvote.orgmercer@catholicvote.org (CatholicVote.org)No mules were harmed in the making of this episodeJoshua Bowman – CatholicVote.orghttp://catholicvote.org/wp-content/uploads/powerpress/cv-podcast-469.pnghttps://www.catholicvote.org
mercer@catholicvote.orgThe Catholic Vote Radio Hour is a program where the dogma lives loudly. Why Should We Care About Confederate Statues?https://www.catholicvote.org/why-should-we-care-about-confederate-statues/
https://www.catholicvote.org/why-should-we-care-about-confederate-statues/#commentsFri, 18 Aug 2017 16:56:17 +0000https://www.catholicvote.org/?p=14723Many people have observed that Confederate memorials were mainly erected in defiance of progress towards civil rights for liberated slaves and their descendants. If so, this is exactly why they should remain. We do not build war memorials to celebrate war, but as a reminder of the tragic cost of war and a warning to future generations. Recent events make clear that we still need these warnings and reminders that violence will not heal our divisions and that silencing unpopular opinions through force will not bring peace.

The Civil War settled some things, but for a full century afterwards, Southern Democrats used political means where military means had failed to perpetuate a de facto state of bondage based on the color of people’s skin. Every monument to the vanquished military leaders is in truth also a monument to some politician who manipulated public opinion to prolong racial and sectional animosity. In this respect, I would like to believe these monuments now represent a double defeat–although perhaps, sadly, it is still too soon to say so.

By removing these memorials, we sanitize the history of the South as though the Civil War magically healed the nation, when in fact war does precisely the opposite. These memorials were built because a majority of the people in the South continued to hold racist and secessionist views–a fact which should give us pause about the wisdom of the majority. Just because something is popular does not mean it is right and just, and our Constitution provides checks on the power of the people–and of the states–for precisely this reason.

If the Republic is to persevere, we need to be reminded that oppression and persecutions are a significant and pernicious part of our history and that we must be vigilant in every generation. Democrats want to remove this history without taking the blame for it and without acknowledging the “soft bigotry of low expectations” that they perpetuate to this very day. The louder they clamor, and the more unpopular it becomes to oppose them (thanks to the despicable stunts of these hate-mongering fringe groups), the more they must be resisted.

That we are still having bloody disputes about these statues now is, to my mind, proof that they are still needed, because we still have not learned the lessons of history that they can teach us. These generals may be dead and gone, but people who share their hateful worldview are still with us. Instead of wrapping themselves in insular urban “safe spaces,” liberals need to be confronted with the reality that ugly and vile ideas still loom in plain sight, and furthermore, that violence will only perpetuate it for yet another century.

Removing statues is akin to suppressing the views of those with whom we disagree. Making ugly things go away from our immediate field of view may seem like a victory for a time, but forcing our opponents into hiding is not the same as conversion. All the memorials in the world to General Grant and General Sherman won’t change this fact, and every statue of General Lee that is destroyed will only confirm it. In a perfect world, every statue in the public square would be a saint, but we do not live in a perfect world. It is altogether fitting then that we preserve monuments to human folly and hubris, lest we think better of ourselves than we truly deserve.

]]>https://www.catholicvote.org/why-should-we-care-about-confederate-statues/feed/95Dressing-Down the Knights of Columbus’ New Uniformhttps://www.catholicvote.org/dressing-down-the-knights-of-columbus-new-uniform/
https://www.catholicvote.org/dressing-down-the-knights-of-columbus-new-uniform/#commentsFri, 04 Aug 2017 14:37:10 +0000https://www.catholicvote.org/?p=14631According to multiple sources in Catholic media, during the 135th Convention of the Knights of Columbus, Supreme Knight Carl Anderson made an announcement that the Fourth Degree will no longer use the plumed hats and capes that have been the staple of pomp and parades, great feasts and civic celebrations, as well as solemn occasions of bereavement and remembrance for over 70 years. According to Anderson, the Knights of Columbus are in need of “modernization” even though in his annual report, membership continues to grow and the Knights donated a record amount to charity in the past year. If the Knights of Columbus isn’t broken, why fix it?

The Knights are a conspicuous and active defender of Holy Mother Church. Especially considering what is happening to our Christian brothers and sisters in Europe and the Middle East, the saber and baldric are not merely symbolic, but a necessity. In America, we have the luxury of fighting for religious freedom through the ballot and the courts, but in the strife and carnage of Syria and Iraq, Christians have seen their churches burned down, their homes bombed, and their lives torn apart. They are fighting for their lives, but the Knights are helping at least one town rebuild now that ISIS is being routed from Iraq. A century ago, the Knights were also at the forefront of religious freedom when they supported the Cristeros in opposition to the brutal anti-Catholic repression in the aftermath of the Mexican Revolution and many Knights were martyred for their defense of the faith.

A few months ago, the National “Catholic” Reporter–famous for their heterodox tendencies–ran what they probably imagined was supposed to be a hit piece on the Knights of Columbus, but it reads more like a recruiting brochure. In addition to many ways that the Knights fight for religious freedom, they also perform many other good works in ways large and small, from fish fries, coat drives, and supporting the needs of the local parish to funding EWTN, the Vatican press office, and recently moving into the digital media space with the acquisition of Crux. As the supposed “exposé” makes clear, the Knights of Columbus are a vigorous and dynamic organization with strong growth and an active membership. It makes one wonder exactly why the organization needs to be “modernized.”

The chapeau and cape are admittedly antiquated, perhaps more in character for a Gilbert and Sullivan operetta than the 21st century. However, the proposed replacement of a beret is oddly reminiscent of third world dictators and Communist revolutionaries. Even the Army no longer uses the beret with combat fatigues and is considering bringing back the classic “pinks and greens” as an alternative to the current beret and service uniform. Both the military and the Catholic Church are steeped in rich traditions, full of deep significance and meaning. Indeed, many religious orders have nicknames which are simply the color of their habits such as the Blackfriars (Dominicans), Whitefriars (Carmelites), Greyfriars (Conventual Franciscans), and Brownfriars (Capuchins). A uniform is the ultimate expression of identity and belonging and should not be changed or discarded lightly.

As Mark Twain famously observed, “Clothes make the man. Naked people have little or no influence in society.” As the popularity of ripped jeans, cargo shorts, and “athlesiure” wear attests, there are many people who give little thought to their appearance these days. The change in uniform was perhaps conceived as a way to appeal to the younger generation, but if anything, it is only even more off-putting. Among this writer’s circle of friends and fellow Knights on social media under the age of 40, the new uniform is the subject of unanimous ridicule. The whole point of the Fourth Degree is to give the Knights of Columbus a sense of prestige and exclusivity which is a source of civic pride and a recruiting tool. The new uniform utterly fails in both respects.

Likewise, what is a knight without his sword? According to the Knights of Columbus Twitter account, the saber will remain a part of the regalia, but this only raises more questions. Perhaps it’s a matter of taste, but wearing both a long necktie and the baldric seems too busy. At the same time, the baldric will have a tendency to pull down on the tie choking the wearer. Additionally, many Knights have antique swords which have been passed on from father to son for generations. Thus, the formal white gloves are not only for looks, but have the essential function of protecting the hilts of these priceless family heirlooms from rust and wear. From this, we can only conclude that the new uniform was hastily conceived and little thought was given to either sartorial or practical considerations which might have been easily obtained had the membership been consulted in this decision.

Supreme Knight Anderson’s announcement includes a caveat that Fourth Degree assemblies will be able to continue using the old regalia on a “limited basis” but it is unclear what this will mean in practice. Hopefully this is an opening for a compromise that will allow assemblies to use both the formal regalia and the new uniform in parallel as appropriate for different settings. While the former is unquestionably more appropriate for solemn liturgical observances, the latter might be more appropriate for summertime wear on patriotic celebrations like the Fourth of July–or, for more traditionally minded parishes, not at all. However, if there is to be no compromise, then this is a terrible decision which will reduce the Fourth Degree to a distinction without a difference and will only sow division and disunity among the ranks of the Knights.

All people–whether they recognize it or not–have a natural and deep yearning for traditions and continuity with the past, and this is especially true of converts like your humble columnist. If we want to change the world for the better–and as Christians, this is what we are called to do–we must remain faithful to what makes us unique. Saint Michael the Archangel is depicted as a warrior and protector of the Church. In a similar way, the Knights of Columbus are always waging spiritual warfare as a strong and vigorous arm of the Ecclesia Militans. Like the typical depiction of Saint Michael in armor and bearing a sword, the Fourth Degree regalia is an iconic expression of our mission. If it must be replaced–and it is not clear this is the case–we deserve something with gravitas and visual impact that the proposed design utterly lacks.

]]>https://www.catholicvote.org/dressing-down-the-knights-of-columbus-new-uniform/feed/59An Update on Charlie Gardhttps://www.catholicvote.org/an-update-on-charlie-gard/
https://www.catholicvote.org/an-update-on-charlie-gard/#commentsFri, 14 Jul 2017 12:13:40 +0000https://catholicvote.org/?p=14425The reports of Charlie Gard’s death are greatly exaggerated. As word of his imminent demise spread around the globe, a multitude of voices have been lifted in prayer for little Charlie. Untold numbers of the faithful have petitioned long-standing patrons of impossible causes like St. Jude and St. Rita, as well as recently departed souls like the Blessed Chiara Badano. Perhaps it is thanks to their intercessions that this child still lives. Charlie’s parents were back in court yesterday to present new testimony from half a dozen American, Italian, and Spanish doctors who have stated that his case is not hopeless.

Even as the staff of the hospital responsible for his care and the European courts fight to kill him, this little baby is tenaciously defying the odds. In the days since the Orwellian European Court of Human Rights handed down an effective death sentence, no less than Pope Francis and President Trump and many others have raised their voices to give this poor child every chance at survival. Congress is even considering a bill to make Charlie a legal permanent resident, so he can freely travel to the United States to seek treatment for his condition. Like a sort of modern-day Moses in the bulrushes, Charlie Gard has found some powerful protectors here across the water.

Meanwhile, the case of the so-called “boy without a brain” reminds us of the incredible resilience of young children to severe mental and physical disabilities at birth. As anyone with young children knows, babies possess enormous capacity for regeneration and healing. A small scrape which would take weeks to heal for an adult is often completely gone for children within days. Children are not so fragile as we might suppose. Other children with conditions similar to Charlie’s were given the same experimental treatment his parents are seeking, and showed genuine progress.

The fact that Charlie is still fighting for his life poses a threat to socialized medicine, because the supposed experts had already given up hope, but his parents have persisted. If the experts are shown to be mistaken, it will call into question the larger trend towards euthanizing the seriously and chronically ill. If Charlie miraculously survives, it will be a stunning rebuke to the conceit that well-educated elites know better than the rest of us. Like Michael Banks in Mary Poppins, his feeble demand for his own two cents could trigger a run on the credibility of those in power, and that is why the government and the hospital have fought so cruelly and bitterly against his parents’ wishes.

Perhaps the experimental treatment will not help Charlie. Perhaps the legal delays have already sapped too much valuable time which could have made a difference in his prognosis. Perhaps God is calling him home and our human efforts to forestall the inevitable are in vain. But then again, perhaps Charlie might be the boy who lived. We won’t know though unless we fight as hard for him as he is fighting just to stay alive.

]]>https://www.catholicvote.org/an-update-on-charlie-gard/feed/8Charlie Gard’s Death Sets a Dangerous Precedenthttps://www.catholicvote.org/charlie-gards-death-sets-a-dangerous-precedent/
https://www.catholicvote.org/charlie-gards-death-sets-a-dangerous-precedent/#commentsThu, 29 Jun 2017 20:32:09 +0000https://www.catholicvote.org/?p=14218Absent some extraordinary intervention, Charlie Gard, aged 10 months, will be killed tomorrow by the doctors charged with his care, who claim that because his condition has no known cure, any effort to prolong his life will cause him harm and thus, they have decided that he must “die with dignity” even though neither he nor his parents have any say in the matter. Indeed, Charlie’s parents have been fighting for him, and raised over £1 million to try an experimental treatment here in America. Given time, perhaps Charlie might have become a medical miracle, but instead, his time will be cut short. This chilling precedent should give us pause, because we have been here before.

In some ways, Charlie Gard’s case is eerily similar to that of Gerhard Kretschmar who was killed in 1939 at the age of 5 months–although not over the objections of his parents, but rather their instigation, as ardent Nazis–because he suffered from severe congenital birth defects. His “mercy killing” was the first of millions who would eventually be murdered by the Nazi regime in their diabolical program of mental, physical, and racial purity. The language authorizing “Aktion T4,” which was the precursor to the Holocaust is chillingly similar to the words of the European Court of Human Rights:

Reich Leader Bouhler and Dr. Brandt are entrusted with the responsibility of extending the authority of physicians, to be designated by name, so that patients who, after a most critical diagnosis, on the basis of human judgment, are considered incurable, can be granted mercy death.— Adolf Hitler

The European judges said it was “not for the court to substitute itself for the competent domestic authorities”. British court judgments in the case had been “meticulous.” Their opinion went on to say:

The domestic courts had concluded, on the basis of extensive, high-quality expert evidence, that it was most likely Charlie was being exposed to continued pain, suffering and distress and that undergoing experimental treatment with no prospects of success would offer no benefit, and continue to cause him significant harm.

Mindful of Godwin’s Law, this comparison is not to suggest that Charlie Gard’s murder is wrong because the Nazis did it, but rather, we can observe that we fought the Nazis because murdering disabled children and ethnic minorities is objectively wrong. Further, we should take careful note that, just as with Hitler’s order, the European Court of Human Rights (an Orwellian name, if there ever was one) does not say whether it is right or wrong to murder a child, but only observes that the “experts” had been “meticulous” in their determination to do so. Like the plague doctor of medieval times, instead of offering a cure, the British physicians can only offer sophistry.

It is a tragedy that in Europe today, the British who fought so bravely and at such great cost to liberate the continent from the murderous Nazis are now creeping down the slippery slope towards the Belgians and the Dutch who are infamous for their enthusiasm for euthanasia. A doctor in the Netherlands was recently cleared of wrongdoing after killing a patient who struggled for her life as her own family restrained her. Killing patients against their will is also commonplace in Belgium. The crimes against humanity which Hitler accomplished by force are now a mundane bureaucratic function that can be carried out with the stroke of a pen. Under the guise of compassion and robed in legality, Europe is now descending into barbarism.

]]>https://www.catholicvote.org/charlie-gards-death-sets-a-dangerous-precedent/feed/72Freedom Didn’t Pull the Triggerhttps://www.catholicvote.org/freedom-didnt-pull-the-trigger/
https://www.catholicvote.org/freedom-didnt-pull-the-trigger/#commentsMon, 19 Jun 2017 16:33:14 +0000https://www.catholicvote.org/?p=14014At the Congressional Ballgame last week, members of Congress displayed unity and class with both sides taking a knee in prayer before the game and then in the later innings, donning purple and gold LSU ball caps in solidarity with their grievously wounded colleague. Meanwhile, the scoreboard displayed words of thanks and encouragement for the Capitol Police whose serendipitous presence at the GOP practice session thankfully ensured that the only fatality was the shooter himself. Unfortunately, such heartwarming bipartisanship has proven to be fleeting, with efforts on bothsides to politicize the shooting over the weekend.

We are beginning to get a picture of the man who committed what was evidently a premeditated and politically motivated attack, and politics are only part of the story. The shooter’s hometown newspaper has uncovered a history of brushes with the law as well as violent and abusive behavior towards a foster child who later overdosed on heroin. It’s clear the Hodgkinsons did not have a happy home, and there is still much we do not know. Similarly, the perpetrator of the Tucson shooting in 2011 exhibited all the symptoms of a schizophrenic psychopath, but that didn’t stop the rush to blame the Tea Party for the attempted assassination of Gabrielle Giffords and the murders of Judge John Roll, Gabe Zimmerman, Phyllis Schneck, Dorwan Stoddard, Dorothy Morris, and nine year-old Christina-Taylor Green. It was wrong then and it’s wrong now.

If the Antifas (many of whom were always anti-government anarchists long before President Trump came on the scene) and sour-grapes radicals on the left are full of vitriol and violent rhetoric, so be it. They are entirely within their rights. Any efforts to stifle law-abiding leftist protests (N.B., window smashing riots are a different matter) and opposition to the government by the right would be just as corrosive to liberty as Lois Lerner’s personal vendetta against the Tea Party. Liberals who complain about Trump’s Big Wall have controlled the fourth wall for decades. Is there any doubt who will benefit most from censorship of political speech? Hint: it’s not going to be conservatives.

That said, when violence is committed against our very republican form of government and duly elected representatives become literal targets as opposed to metaphorical ones, the punishment for anyone complicit in such an attack must be prompt and severe. Jared Loughner is insane, but he will also die in a federal prison, alone and unmourned. James Hodgkinson was dispatched from this life to face a different sort of judgement. This is as it should be. They have already paid the price for their crimes. We should not have to pay an even steeper price by ceding our freedoms. Freedom didn’t pull the trigger. They did.

When a madman attacks self-government, ordered liberty, and the rule of law, our response should be to cherish our freedoms all the more. Whether Democrat or Republican, we have the right, the privilege, and the duty to passionately and forcefully disagree on deep questions of morality, the common good, and human flourishing, because politics is a serious business and we serve no one by obscuring hard truths with euphemism and innuendo. Stunts like Kathy Griffin’s assassination of the President in effigy or the portrayal of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar as a Trump look-alike are shocking, vulgar, and most likely counterproductive, but even so, Patrick Henry famously made a similar comparison. Partisan political rancor, no matter how deplorable, can never excuse a sociopath who already had a propensity for violence long before Donald Trump ever entered politics.

It is no accident that politics uses the language of war. We speak of campaigns, blood sport, target districts, battleground states, and so forth. Clausewitz famously said, “War is the continuation of politics by other means.” At its root, the rule of law is upheld by the threat of violence. These things are all unavoidable, but suppression of free speech only makes actual violence more likely by denying a constructive forum for entirely valid and reasonable disagreements. If violence really is bubbling just under the surface of the public consciousness, it serves no one to clamp a lid on speech and turn a simmering rage into an explosive pressure cooker.

The answer to free speech is more speech. Instead of blocking off those with whom we disagree, we should engage. Instead of shutting our ears to arguments, we should reach out. Behind the mask of depravity and antisocial behavior there is a human being somewhere. If we leave these sorts of would-be assassins in the darkness to fester and nurse their grievances, we lose the chance to prick their consciences and to tug them back towards the light. If the bitterness in politics is largely due to the immense power of the government to impact our lives, the antidote then is not to give the government more power, but to work from the bottom up to change our culture. Therefore, let us draw together and rediscover civil discourse–before it’s too late to avert the next attack.

]]>https://www.catholicvote.org/freedom-didnt-pull-the-trigger/feed/1Father’s Day, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Surrogacyhttps://www.catholicvote.org/fathers-day-the-handmaids-tale-and-surrogacy/
https://www.catholicvote.org/fathers-day-the-handmaids-tale-and-surrogacy/#commentsWed, 14 Jun 2017 11:51:59 +0000https://www.catholicvote.org/?p=13930Hulu’s serial adaptation of The Handmaid’s Tale concludes this week, just in time for every radical feminist’s favorite annual celebration of patriarchal oppression: Father’s Day. Conveniently, we are also smack in the middle of LGBT Pride Month, which includes contradictory factions who both advocate and oppose surrogacy. While there are some LGBT advocates who insist that the inherent inability of same-sex couples to conceive is a form of discrimination, there are also lesbian and feminist factions around the world who strenuously object to gay men using women as incubators for artificially created children.

In the Trump era, liberals are obsessed with dystopian fiction, such as imagining themseles as part of a true-life Resistance like that portrayed in The Man in the High Castle which not-at-all-coincidentally released its second season just weeks after the election. Comparisons with The Handmaid’s Tale take an equally unsubtle tone. As one article puts it, “Now that Mike Pence is our vice president, the entire country will look more like Gilead, too,” because evidently opposition to abortion is tantamount to forcing women into a totalitarian nightmare of slavery and glorified rape.

There is a certain irony in this article written by a woman which is full of invective against other women (conservatives, naturally), when much of the drama and character development in The Handmaid’s Tale reveals that a brutal patriarchy is only possible when women attack other women. Although a man can never ever be excused for his ignorant microagressions and boorish mansplaining, it’s at least understandable, because he is a clueless and useless drone after all. Speaking of drones, the behavior of female bees is particularly instructive for explaining the true horror of Margaret Atwood’s dystopia where the women in power have highly specific roles and carry out much of the cruel work of oppressing one another. Mother Nature does not take any prisoners:

When a young virgin queen emerges from a queen cell, she will generally seek out virgin queen rivals and attempt to kill them. Virgin queens will quickly find and kill (by stinging) any other emerged virgin queen (or be dispatched themselves), as well as any unemerged queens…When the after-swarm settles into a new home, the virgins will then resume normal behavior and fight to the death until only one remains. If the prime swarm has a virgin queen and the old queen, the old queen will usually be allowed to live. The old queen continues laying. Within a couple of weeks she will die a natural death and the former virgin, now mated, will take her place.

Like The Highlander, there can be only one. Within the LGBT movement itself, there are competing grievances with seemingly irreconcilable differences. One the one hand, transsexuals reject the gender binary as a social construct and argue for a fluid understanding of sexual attraction while on the other hand gays and lesbians maintain that they are “born this way” and, whether because of genetics, hormones, or both, their sexual attractions are hard-wired from before birth. Like the virgin queen bees, it’s unlikely that these contradictions can coexist within a movement that demands absolute adherence to its articles of faith, where even gays who support President Trump are deemed insufficiently gay to be included in a gay pride parade.

Like the article which criticizes conservative women as unwitting tools of the evil patriarchy, the Women’s March in January made headlines for refusing to allow pro-Life women who wanted to participate in shared opposition to the President’s past misogynistic and regressive bad behavior, which is probably just as well considering the counterproductive vulgarity displayed by many of the participants. Happily, radical feminists and pro-life Catholics in Europe have managed to avoid the vicious self-destructive internecine fights of the bee colony, but have instead found common cause in their opposition to surrogacy, which is, you know, what The Handmaid’s Tale is actually about, as opposed to any imagined parallels with the Trump administration.

Gilead is not a product of religion so much as your more run-of-the-mill totalitarianism, and in this respect, the left would profit as much as the right from a little critical self-examination. Although the regime uses Christian imagery, it perverts all Christian understanding of morality, sexuality, and the family. Surrogacy–whether brutally enforced by the state or by exploiting the most vulnerable women in developing countries–demotes the sacred space of the womb to a purely mechanical function while separating it from the emotional and sensual connections formed by marital relations and also from the deep biochemical connections formed between mother and child through the course of pregnancy even if they do not share any genetic material. If there is a lesson for our own time from fictional world of Gilead, it is that when we dehumanize our children, we also dehumanize ourselves.

Indeed, although Atwood’s real-life nemesis was the Catholic Phyllis Schlafly, the former’s book is at least nuanced enough to recognize that Gilead is a world where Catholics as well as liberals would be persecuted. Whatever one wants to take away from The Handmaid’s Tale, the Catholic Church remains a consistent and unyielding voice for the sanctity of life and against the objectification and victimization of women and the commoditization of children. Furthermore, even most Protestants would never submit to a perverted theology that condones Eugenics and Nazi-style breeding programs. Catholics like Maximilian Kolbe and Edith Stein died for their faith, but so did Protestants like Dietrich Bonhoeffer.

We live in strange times when the deplorable Femen are desecrating a church on one day but marching in solidarity with pro-life mothers on the next, but a stopped clock is right twice a day and all that. While Justice Kennedy may have overruled the democratic process on same-sex marriage with his opinion in Obergefell v. Hodges, the legal ramifications for children remain very much an open question. Father’s Day would not be possible without the mothers who bring life into the world, but it also would not be possible without those dear bumbling drones that we call Dad either, and no law can pretend otherwise.

]]>https://www.catholicvote.org/fathers-day-the-handmaids-tale-and-surrogacy/feed/4Notre Dame and the Nanny Statehttps://www.catholicvote.org/notre-dame-and-the-nanny-state/
https://www.catholicvote.org/notre-dame-and-the-nanny-state/#commentsTue, 23 May 2017 16:52:10 +0000https://www.catholicvote.org/?p=13624This past Sunday, a couple hundred students made headlines by turning their backs on Vice President and former Indiana Governor Mike Pence as he began his commencement address at the University of Notre Dame. These new graduates will hopefully soon discover that such behavior is not acceptable in a professional environment, at least not for the time being. Whether this will remain the case is a more troubling question as the rising Millennial generation builds a world for themselves that more and more resembles their insular and carefree college years. As a vision of things to come–or perhaps a warning–the Washingtonian magazine recently profiled a new type of communal apartments called “WeLive.”

WeLive offers many of the conveniences and comforts of the college dormitory experience. This trend towards “lifestyle” in real estate marketing is eerily similar to the language used by college admissions promotional materials. There are the same sort of planned community activity nights, plenty of “free” amenities, and most of all, an emphasis on building relationships and networking to improve one’s future career prospects–a sort of country club for hipsters. The much ridiculed “pajama boy” stereotype of Millennials could not be further from the truth, as the tenants are very much type-A go-getters. Still, there is a certain Peter Pan quality to pre-furnished apartments where nobody can be bothered to deal with mundane tasks like cooking, cleaning, laundry, or running errands.

The term “adulting” has entered currency as a way of describing these ordinary chores which are now outsourced to the “sharing economy” (a bitterly ironic euphemism if there ever was one). For the rest of us, this is simply called life. The ability to press a button on an iPad in order to command other people is a sort of dumb waiter for the 21st century. It conveniently sanitizes the interaction between the lives of the privileged and those who serve them. Just as lifestyle communities and phone apps allow Millennials to insulate themselves from the annoyances of life in the real world, technology also increasingly allows them to insulate themselves from different ideas.

Although diversity is prized as the highest ideal of academia and the corporate world, when everything can be taken care of at the press of a button, it’s hard to strike up a conversation with the taxi driver who fled from Boko Haram to protect his family or the plumber who had to leave everything he ever knew when the Muslim Brotherhood burned down his church or the pharmacist who used to be a professor of organic chemistry at a university in Cambodia before the Communists took over and murdered all her students. These are people for whom the term “safe spaces” simply means being allowed to live.

With all the horrors and struggles in the world today–yesterday’s terrorist bombing in Manchester which was aimed mainly at defenseless women and children provides a brutal example–the newest graduates of Notre Dame look rather foolish, petty, and small by comparison. Ironically, the Vice President’s speech was about protecting exactly the kind of freedom that privileged Notre Dame students take for granted, both abroad and on campus. A college education is supposed to challenge students to think critically about their assumptions and preconceived notions, but instead, like many universities today, the “Standards of Conduct” for Notre Dame includes a prohibition on “unwelcome communications” as a behavior which is “clearly inconsistent with the University’s expectations for membership in this community.”

As we saw a few weeks ago in Berkeley, these restrictions on speech inevitably lead to violence. When our future leaders are no longer taught how to engage in civil debate and how to politely disagree, they will increasingly resort to riots and mayhem to get their way. Fortunately at Notre Dame the disruption to the commencement ceremony was non-violent, but it is clearly part of a larger trend towards lawless radicalism on college campuses. A student interviewed by CNN described the motivations for the walk-out by saying, “Either we are all Notre Dame or none of us are, ” which as nonsensical as it is, nevertheless has a disturbingly totalitarian ring to it.

In the case of WeLive, instead of expecting the government to take care of everything, Millennials are being trained to trust corporate entities to provide for all their food, furnishings, and entertainment in a self-contained little world. In return for these creature comforts, they can devote more of their time to being productive little worker bees who add value by spending all their waking hours thinking about the new social app they’re developing. Community living is all well and good–to a point. However, the implication is pretty clear that, just as with campus speech codes, only people who buy into the snowflake ethos of today’s college campuses would be welcome there.

For now, this is an experimental form of living that is self-selecting, but it’s not hard to imagine this lifestyle first becoming normal, and then eventually mandatory as a condition of employment for technology companies on the leading edge of innovation, much in the same way that many companies today offer irresistible incentives for tracking previously private choices about diet and exercise or force workers into open plan offices that stifle creativity and productivity. As idealistic college students grow into a world which coddles and comforts them through a perpetual childhood, they will increasingly assume that what is good for them is also good for everyone else. Cut off from disagreement and criticism, they will fail to seek feedback from the very people they ostensibly want to help in the futuristic utopia they aim to create.

No country ever fell into despotism because they thought they’d be worse off, but it’s always been tied to some promise of greater prosperity and security. As breathtaking as the last 60 years of progress has been, technology companies still have enormous untapped potential as engines of economic growth and greater prosperity for all. However, without deeper reflection on the purpose of the technology we create, technology also gives us the power to make our world into a bleak panopticon of soulless toil. Totalitarianism with white-glove service, a slick social media app, blond hardwoods, free beer, yoga classes, and an on-site gourmet chef is still totalitarianism.

]]>https://www.catholicvote.org/notre-dame-and-the-nanny-state/feed/12Religious Freedom is a Journey, Not the Destinationhttps://www.catholicvote.org/religious-freedom-is-a-journey-not-the-destination/
https://www.catholicvote.org/religious-freedom-is-a-journey-not-the-destination/#commentsFri, 05 May 2017 13:17:11 +0000https://catholicvote.org/?p=13339Thursday was a good day for Little Sisters of the Poor and for anyone who cares about religious liberty. On one end of Pennsylvania Avenue, President Trump signed an executive order instructing the Lois Lerner types at the IRS to cease their ideological attacks on religious organizations while on the other end of the avenue, the House of Representatives passed a bill to repeal many of the most onerous provisions of ObamaCare. Hopefully these small victories will lead to still others, but as it stands, they are a rebuke to Rod Dreher’s vision which is profiled in this month’s New Yorker. However, to see why, we start in an unlikely place. Namely, the South Pacific, and specifically, last year’s Disney blockbuster, “Moana.”

The story of “Moana” is loosely based on Polynesian mythology as well as anthropological and historical evidence of the “long pause” period during which daring feats of blue-water seafaring were temporarily curtailed for nearly two thousand years. The contrasting themes of tradition and exploration at the heart of the plot are, in a way, very biblical, despite the pagan overlay. As with any Disney movie, there are many of the standard tropes of the adventure genre which touch on deep truths of the human experience. Unfortunately, it can be hard to see this beneath all the dizzying spectacle of musical numbers encouraging children to run away from their parents and otherwise misbehave, which is perhaps part of the reason why C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien hated the studio so much.

In their epic tales of high fantasy, the Inklings (as they called themselves) thought long and hard about what the point of such stories should be. The result was, of course, two of the greatest works of English fiction: the Chronicles of Narnia and the Lord of the Rings saga. Whether bickering schoolchildren or plucky Hobbits, the protagonists reluctantly leave their lives of comfort and plenty to embark on an uncertain quest beyond the farthest horizon as ominous threats of war gather unseen. On the other hand, the young Moana is unhappy in her tropical paradise and yearns for something more than her island home can give her. However, on her own, her sailing is clumsy and ineffective. Crucially, she sets out guided by the ancient wisdom and traditions of her forebears (sung by “Hamilton” superstar composer/playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda) as well as her wise grandmother who knows of the old ways.

Unlike the restless Moana, Rod Dreher’s “Benedict Option” is echoed more in the opening number which extols the virtues of the sedentary lifestyle of her tribe. They don’t seem to mind their isolation, but are cheerful in their self-sufficiency. On a different island, Shakespeare snarkily contemplates the blissful ignorance of this worldview through the words of a different Miranda:

MIRANDA:

O, wonder!
How many goodly creatures are there here!
How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world,
That has such people in’t!

PROSPERO: ‘Tis new to thee.

After contact with Americans and Europeans, particularly during the Second World War, some Polynesian tribes adopted a new form of worship which is theorized to be a sort of coping mechanism when confronted with the materialism of Western culture and the damage it did to their societal structure in which generosity is the basis of respect and authority. As a particular oddity, at least one tribe now believes that Prince Philip is a god who will someday return to deliver them wealth surpassing all Western riches. One supposes that they will be disappointed to learn that their messiah is in declining health and is no longer fit to make another journey to the other side of the globe.

Whereas the people of Vanuatu are spiritually rich and materially poor, Dreher correctly diagnoses the fault of Western society which is materially rich and spiritually poor. Although Christ promises us time and time again that God knows our needs and will provide for us, the temptations of materialism are immense, as Disney’s merchandising operation makes clear. Whereas the cargo cults modified their ancient faith to adapt to the unbelievable wealth of a foreign culture, the “Benedict Option” in its ideal form sacrifices material abundance (or perhaps overabundance) in search of more authentic faith. However, like the cargo cults, this way of life is only possible if outside forces preserve the freedom to practice it. Small outposts of holiness can only thrive if we have strong institutions to serve as a check on the decadence of society and the oppression of government.

In this sense then, the “Benedict Option” is a sort of naïve hope (which for Dreher is as much personal as it is philosophical) that we can return to a more innocent state of life far away from the kind of malevolent world-historical forces that unleashed the atomic bomb on the pristine Bikini archipelago. To Dreher’s credit, some Christians are undoubtedly called to vocations as hermits or monastics. Even St. John the Evangelist lived out the length of his days on the idyllic island of Patmos. However, for most people, there is a deep and instinctual yearning to seek new lands. As scripture tells us, “How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the gospel of peace, of them that bring glad tidings of good things!” The Word of God is written in our hearts and we are called to go out into the world to share our joy. In another passage, Jesus exhorts his disciples:

You are the light of the world. A city seated on a mountain cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but upon a candlestick, that it may shine to all that are in the house. So let your light shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.

From America’s founding, we have seen ourselves as that “City on a Hill.” Whether as the Catholic Columbus or the Protestant Puritans, we have been guided by the faith and the stars of our fathers to cross an ocean in search of a better life. It is no coincidence that Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared in the New World just as the Reformation was unleashing centuries of bloody war and abject suffering in Europe. This is why religious freedom is so important. An intentional community of like-minded believers is well and good, but neither should we cede our rights to practice our faith in the public square–rights which were purchased so dearly–without putting up an almighty fight.

Dreher’s search for rootedness and community speaks to a very real need, like Moana’s tribe, to be secure in the certain knowledge of who we are and where we came from. In our modern age, this has only become more difficult, as people are often not who they seem. Without a firm reliance on the deposit of faith and the manifold graces of the sacraments, we can do nothing. The Church is–or ought to be–the center of our lives. We should all strive to build up strong communities within the bosom of Mother Church wherever we are, whether in the bucolic countryside or the bustling and decadent metropolis. As the Ecclesia Militans, we are engaged in spiritual warfare–if perhaps reluctantly, like Tolkien’s Hobbits–and as with any battle, we do not always get to fight on the ground of our choosing. Sometimes this is through prayer and works of charity. Sometimes this is through media and entertainment. Sometimes this is in the courtroom or the halls of Congress.

That said, one of the central roles in “Moana” is the demigod, Maui, voiced by Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson who was recently profiled by National Review as a conservative-leaning celebrity who, at least in public, tends to emphasize values over political positions. In a similar vein, the Washingtonian Magazine’s latest issue includes an interview with Fr. Scalia (son of the late Justice) who spoke about how religious freedom is not an end in itself, but only a means of reaching out to care for souls. While liberals tend to ruin entertainment and pervert faith by making everything about politics, the truest form of conservatism sees politics only as a tool, not a good of itself. Politics is a messy, obnoxious, and difficult business, but even so, it’s a game that we can and must play to remain an active and vigorous force for good in the world.

As the metaphysical poet John Donne famously wrote:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.

If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were:
As well as if a manor of thy friend’s
Or of thine own were.

Any man’s death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.

Which gets us back to the Little Sisters. The nuns in the grey habits show us what royalty looks like in the Heavenly Kingdom. To serve God, we must serve others, even those who despise us. Jesus tells us to gird our loins and be watchful. He says to his disciples, “And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another,” and then later, “Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword.” The Little Sisters live this mission with heroic virtue, patiently and tenderly caring for the sick and dying who are ignored and forgotten by society at large, even as they have been persecuted by those in power. Unlike Dr. Pangloss’ utopian vision, just tending to our own garden is not enough. Our faith is a wonderful and precious gift, but if it is not shared and spread–despite all the hazards and uncertainties of our dangerous world–it is worthless.

]]>https://www.catholicvote.org/religious-freedom-is-a-journey-not-the-destination/feed/2How Could Liberals Have Been So Wrong?https://www.catholicvote.org/how-could-liberals-have-been-so-wrong/
https://www.catholicvote.org/how-could-liberals-have-been-so-wrong/#commentsWed, 26 Apr 2017 17:37:09 +0000https://www.catholicvote.org/?p=13162Entertainers used to ask the question, “Will it play in Peoria?” Thanks to technology which enables media to reach a national audience instantly, they think they don’t have to, but they still do. The Politico recently published a navel-gazing indictment of the entire journalistic establishment which failed to see and understand the forces that propelled Donald Trump to the presidency. Indeed, as liberals continue to hold tone-deaf protests and rallies like the Earth Day March for Science with former children’s television host and political agitator Bill Nye as their headline speaker this past weekend, it only reinforces the observation that the Left does not grasp how much the political ground has shifted under their feet, nor how much this is an unintended by-product of technological progress.

If you dislike the partisan rancor which has become cliché, then blame Silicon Valley for the destruction of local newspapers, shops, theaters, and other cultural institutions of small-town life. Top tier cities are booming, but in the vast middle of the country, cities and towns are hollowed out and derelict. Coastal liberals are prone to heap scorn and abuse on these Trump-supporting inhabitants of the Rust Belt and Appalachia, but anybody who claims to be a moderate should lament this state of affairs. Like an acrobat trying to cross a tightrope in a tempestuous gale, how we decide what is true or false is increasingly buffeted by howling invective and exaggerations on both ends of the political spectrum.

Just as extreme as the liberal media, Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and Breitbart are able to thrive, because the caricature of liberalism they imagine they are fighting is no longer a caricature. Whereas journalists in small towns could not avoid encountering the average Joe, inside the coastal cocoon, it’s easy to find self-referential liberals who don’t realize how extreme they are, and they make easy targets for hyperbole and ridicule. Bill Nye’s bizarre new music video about gender fluidity is a perfect example of the genre. Only a doctrinaire liberal insulated from all disagreement could think that this lewd and obscene display is in any way persuasive or intellectually challenging.

Big business, including mass media and entertainment, used to be the domain of moderate limousine liberals and country club conservatives who, although never guilty of understanding the struggles of ordinary people, at least sensed that there were certain universal norms and values that were best left alone. The moguls of Silicon Valley who have upended our culture are as radically progressive as they come, and actively seek to use their power to change it. Technological titans like Mark Zuckerberg and Jeff Bezos are now deeply engaged in political battles and they have unprecedented ability to influence public opinion.

As someone who makes a living in the technology field, your humble writer is no Luddite by any means, but at the same time, it’s for these reasons I don’t blame most people for being deeply skeptical of technological progress–and if you aren’t, you should be. The thesis of last weekend’s protest is that science is a force for good for all people, but this brave new world of technological mastery clearly demonstrates that we have unleashed forces we do not understand and which have the very real danger of undermining the entire American project of ordered liberty. If liberals really care about freedom, they would do well to take a few weekends off from protesting here and there to examine how they bear much of the responsibility for bringing us to this point.

]]>https://www.catholicvote.org/how-could-liberals-have-been-so-wrong/feed/7Babies ‘R’ Ushttps://www.catholicvote.org/babies-r-us/
https://www.catholicvote.org/babies-r-us/#commentsFri, 21 Apr 2017 11:56:24 +0000https://www.catholicvote.org/?p=13065Last week, the New York Times ran an article about special “package deals” for in vitro fertilization in the business section, which of itself should raise a few eyebrows. Not only that, but the piece tackled thorny ethical questions head on without even the slightest trace of irony, which calls to mind the aphorism attributed to Winston Churchill, “Occasionally he stumbled over the truth, but hastily picked himself up and hurried on as if nothing had happened.” As a result, this “Your Money” column manages to expose the depravity of our culture without even trying, and it is an ugly picture indeed. When human life is commoditized, we should expect no less.

The high success rate of this eugenics project is rigged from the start. The article mentions a couple who has compiled statistics on the procedure who have concluded that doctors tend to select people who may not even need help with fertility and then offer them money-back guarantees of success. With the prevalence of hormonal contraceptives and delayed marriage, procreation is difficult for many couples, but instead of advising women against hormonal contraceptives from the start–which have many negative side-effects besides infertility, the medical response to the failure of this blunt instrument is to over-correct with even more interventions, which can have ghastly consequences.

Multiple embryos are typically implanted simultaneously and with twins or triplets (or even quadruplets!) the risk of premature birth is increased, which is attended by all manner of complications, many of which are life-threatening or at the very least life-altering for the children. One of the most common causes of infertility is dysfunction of the sperm, so naturally the medical “treatment” is to perform a highly invasive procedure on the woman which places both her life and the life of her baby at risk. These risks are given only a cursory mention in the article though. Instead the piece notes, “The head-spinning questions that all of these matters of money, biology and feelings inspire make some doctors wary.” These gut-wrenching decisions of life and death are not guided by ethics or common sense, mind you, but feelings.

Doctors engaged in these practices are keen to capitalize on such feelings in order to increase their bottom line, because in order to take this sucker bet, couples must be made to feel that they are deficient and destined for failure. Instead of counseling patients to be, well, patient and let nature take its course, fertility doctors are looking for opportunities to make a quick buck with quick results. In fact, one of the couples profiled in the story actually did conceive their fourth child without any medical assistance–only for the mother to request a tubal ligation, which beggars belief and makes one question whether the whole costly ordeal was truly necessary at all.

The column repeatedly refers to copulation as the “old fashioned” way of doing things, as if to imply that the union of flesh between man and woman is an outdated and inefficient method of bringing children into the world–except, the fact is that sex is the most fine-tuned and well-honed bodily function in all of human experience. We didn’t get to have roughly seven billion people on the planet by a difficult or defective process. We have to be painstakingly taught by our parents how to eat and how to go to the bathroom, but the mechanism of procreation comes pretty naturally to everyone.

Of course, sex also doesn’t have any guarantees. Some people–many people–struggle with fertility. Even the arrogant and egotistical fertility doctors can only prod and poke at things they don’t fully understand. Ultimately, life is a miracle which is not meant to be in our control. We are not mushrooms or bacteria who can propagate clones of ourselves. It is our very nature to seek the complementarity of male and female in order to perpetuate life. In order to beget the next generation, we must become naked and vulnerable and surrender a part of ourselves to another person–and we need the practice, because the life that is created from this union will place even greater demands on us. Life is not something to be procured from an “à la carte” menu and sent back to the kitchen if it fails to meet our standards.

When I look around the dinner table at my children, I do not see some science experiment, I do not see some collection of molecules that were assembled in a chemical reaction to complete an equation, I do not see some project to be finished by a self-imposed deadline, and I certainly do not see a dollar amount gained or lost. Every child is a unique creature of God, filled with His heavenly joy and laughter. As mothers and fathers, we are charged with an awesome responsibility, but it is only bearable with the knowledge that all children–even those conceived by unnatural means–are ultimately God’s children, not ours. When we stray from the security of that knowledge, we bring upon ourselves a truly ponderous weight which we do not fully comprehend, and which will be our own destruction.